Senate president urges EU to increase financial support to Jordan

[1/25/2018 12:40:20 PM]

AMMONNEWS - Senate President Faisal Fayez urged the EU to increase its financial support to Jordan to address budget deficit triggered by burdens of the Syrian refugee crisis.

During a meeting hosted Thursday by the Jordanian-EU Friendship Committee with EU Ambassador here, Andrea Matteo Fontana, Fayez said Amman's ties with the bloc are "strategic and robust and based and serve joint interest".

The Kingdom highly values the EU's backing to counter repercussions of the Mideast volatilities and to help address its financial concerns, he underlined, and called for further economic support for the forthcoming five years as the United States did.

Jordan was adversely affected due to the Mideast conflicts, extremism and terrorism, and thus quarter of the state budget goes to tackling influx of the Syrian refugees on its soil, and the sum Amman spent on Syrians here surpassed $10 billion, he explained.

He also lauded EU's support to fair Arab causes, especially its stance to back the King's rejection of the U.S. administration's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Fontana, in turn, said the EU is resolved to continue offering economic aid to Amman and values Jordan's key role to handle the Syrian refugee plight and to bring peace and stability to the region.

The EU's aid, the envoy added, is diverse and covered crucial sectors of education, energy, and water.